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Galloway denies Iraq payment claims
If it's true, it's a nuke in the lap of the British anti-war camp...
Labour MP George Galloway has denied a newspaper report he received money from Saddam Hussein's regime and threatened to take legal action. The Daily Telegraph claimed Mr Galloway received £375,000 a year from the oil for food programme, according to Iraqi intelligence documents the paper says it found in Baghdad. But Mr Galloway has strongly denied soliciting money from the Iraqi regime and dismissed the official Iraqi letter as a possible forgery or as having been doctored to discredit him.
| "Framed! I'm bein' framed, I tell ya!" |
The Telegraph said the documents suggested Mr Galloway was conducting a relationship with Iraqi intelligence while campaigning for his anti-war charity, the Mariam Appeal. The Labour MP told the paper it was "preposterous" to suggest his pro-Iraq campaigning activities were funded by the Iraqi dictator. The Telegraph claimed a confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his head of intelligence showed Mr Galloway had asked a secret agent for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil-for-food programme. The Telegraph said the papers were found by one of their journalists in the foreign ministry in Baghdad. In a statement, Mr Galloway insisted the documents were either forged or doctored. "I have never solicited nor received money from Iraq for our campaign against war and sanctions," he said. "I have never seen a barrel of oil, never owned one, never bought one, never sold one."
Sounds like a man losing touch with plausability.
| And from a high official in former Iraqi intelligence: "I have never seen a British politician, never owned one, never bought one, never sold one." |
He said the paper's claim he had met Iraqi intelligence officials was incorrect "to the best of my knowledge".
Methinks he might start remembering stuff soon.
"Given that I have had access over the years to Iraq's political leadership, most often the deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, I would have absolutely no reason to be meeting with an official of Iraqi intelligence." Mr Galloway said he had not seen the documents because he was out of the country writing a book about Iraq. "From the way they have been described to me, I can state that they bear all the hallmarks of having been either forged or doctored and are designed to discredit those who stood against the war," he said. They were part of what he described as a "smear campaign against those who stood against the illegal and bloody war on Iraq and against its occupation by foreign forces". He continued: "The idea that such documents have, as if to order, come to light just days after the massive assault on Baghdad, the looting and destruction of its ministries and government buildings and the chaos in the country, must be treated as highly suspect."
| "I thought they destroyed the evidence, dammit! Haven't those natives ever heard of cover names? Don't they use burn bags?" |
Mr Galloway said any interests he had in relation to the Mariam Appeal were registered in the House of Commons Register of Members Interests. The Mariam Appeal, named after an Iraqi child, did not receive any financial help from Iraq for its activities, the MP said. Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he stood by his newspaper's story. He said: "When you find a document of this sort, what you need to establish is the prima facie case for its validity, and then you get the other side of the story, you get the person in question to put his side. "That is what we have done. I would think that would be perfectly conventional journalistic behaviour."
Oh, whatta beautiful scoop.
Posted by: Bulldog 2003-04-22 |
